station72 | [open]

Entry tags:

[open]

CHARACTERS: Asuka Langley Soryu and you.
WHERE: The Station
WHEN: Day: 048
SUMMARY: Asuka hasn't had a good time emotionally; she tries to distract herself by overworking.
WARNINGS: Potential mention of suicide, suicidal ideation, death.

[ Her conversations with Misato didn't go anywhere. Or at least they didn't go anywhere that would help Asuka resolve the teeming mass of uncomfortable hollowness that permeates her. Every last bit of her old self-worth feels as if it's been ground out of her, squeezed by her death, by Third Impact, and now by Misato, until she's been left flailing and trying to grasp onto something - anything - that will let her keep her head above water. She has a new purpose now, so at least there's that. There are new people around her. Some of them are even decent, but she tries not to let on that she likes some of them.

Of course, with Adra and Lavellan, it's almost impossible for her to keep that way. They're a constant presence at the back of her mind. Warm light and a familiar feeling of frustration and loss, respectively. The feelings she associates with them now and the emotions that creep in when she tries to pay attention to their buzzing, humming presence. She's adapted, too. She's found that she can tune out the voices if she wants, but that simply letting them fade into the background of her head is almost easier.

Asuka's not sure how she feels about that.

There's nothing for her to do yet and she feels antsy and on edge and if she sits too long, her mind is going to start crawling down into dark places and it'll take her with it. So she moves. She decides to train, because she's here to fight a war and if she has to fight, she's going to be ready. They have a gym and she's using it now, going through a routine. Running, acrobatics, exercises, and a barrage of punches and kicks that are aimed at the punching bag there. Her form is a bit sloppy, but there's real muscle memory to it - like a fighter who coming back after an injury. It's also a bit strange to see a five-foot nothing teenager going after said punching bag with the viciousness of a cornered animal, teeth gritted, breath hissing between her teeth, anger and frustration rolling out of her with every blow until she leaves herself panting and out of breath, still glaring at the punching bag as if it somehow personally offended her.

She spits out a few choice curse-words in German, but she welcomes the feeling of physical exhaustion that washes over her and radiates out through the hive link. Better than the alternative. ]

[OOC: Will potentially ad more prompts later; if you'd like to hit her somewhere else, just wildcard it. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ This is war.

You get away from the end of the world to become a soldier on the next. Is that what everyone here is expected to be? Are they capable, or will they be coerced? ]

Not up to me to decide.

[ He's just. Exploring aimlessly. Why not. ]

I need to get to know the place.

[ Not that he wants someone to show him around... baka... ]

There's not that much to see. At least not that's important.

[ Then again, she's only been here for a short while herself. Maybe she's not exactly an expert. ]

What do you want to know?

[ Which doesn't stop her from pretending to be an expert. ]

How long it takes. To have some control.

[ Over what bleeds out, over what comes crashing in. The way he's seen Prince manipulate this ship like it's an organic, breathing machine. ]

I don't know.

[ Asuka's lips press together into a thin line. She knows exactly what he's talking about. ]

I'm still figuring it out!

[ Ugh. She hates admitting that. ]

[ It's okay, Asuka, we're all losers here. ]

... I hate that too.

[ A weird admission - not in its nature, but because Hyperion chose to share it. Or maybe it wasn't much of a choice at all, and instead a push from the Hive to draw a line between two dots. Two dots making great efforts to not connect.

Hyperion's open discomfort is temporary. ]

Not used to - [ The pause denounces a lack of a proper term, or the willingness to use the obvious one. ] - This.

What? Having other people in your brain? Yeah. It kinda sucks.

[ She skims over the admission of hatred that he plucked out of her. It's a weird feeling. Lines being drawn, connections being made that she can't remember consciously making. She rubs her temple wit ha scowl. ]

I... kinda experienced something like it, but it was a lot... Ugh. There were less lines between people. No barriers. I wasn't - I wasn't me.

[ Here's a new question: how do you ask someone to explain without asking them to explain?

Answer (??): You ask something else. ]

Did it help.

I-

[ She wants to say no. She hated it. She despised having to endure that. But it did help her in some ways. Just not the way he's asking. ]

I don't think so.

[ There's only a lack of disappointment because Hyperion had no substantial expectations. His brief exhale is an unspoken figures. ]

Gotta find something that can.

[ Asuka. Hyperion. Whoever else is trying not to scream and tell the entire station to shut down their thoughts so that they can stop feeling like a sphere of something amorphous, always watching, is closing in on them.

Gaze drifting over to the punching bag, Hyperion reconsiders his initial perception. Maybe that's where she was looking for help. ]

Maybe practice. I don't know.

[ She sounds a little resigned and a little angry. She's been forced into this, but she thinks it's still better than the alternative. She'll take it, because it's not a dead, dead world. That doesn't mean she has to like all of the aspects of it, because she sure as Hell doesn't. ]

I'll deal with it.

[ It would be challenging to find a greater number of things to dislike here than he did back home, but at least those things he left behind were familiar. He knew how to navigate them, and now, like Asuka, he's being forced to live in a place that's better than the alternative: a world reduced to literal ash.

She'll deal with it, she says. So will he, for now. However: ]

Alone?

Is there any other way? I don't need help.

[ But she does and always has, no matter how hard she tries to force others away. She needs and wants help, even if she screams at people to stay away from her. It's her paradox. A strange, strange place to be. She doesn't understand it and she tries to grapple with it and in the end, she thinks it's safer to be alone then to let others in. ]

Everybody needs help with something. Doesn't mean someone else has to be it.

[ The few he counted on are long gone, and everyone who came after broke his sense of trust beyond repair. There were too many prisons, too many wounds, too much laughter heard when all he could feel was blood being traded for pain and degradation.

(It's a woman's voice, mocking him. She's young and glamorous and incredibly cruel, hair tightly pulled back in a tall ponytail, her face covered in the shadow of orange lights illuminating the prison, from beyond the corner.)

He doesn't think it's safer to be alone. He knows so. ]

Then what do you think, if you're so smart?

[ There's a bit of venom there. She recognizes the lack of trust. The feeling of having been failed by people she was supposed to be able to trust. Too many times (mama papa Misato Shinji Kaji). Too little has been done for her and she's been cast aside one too many times for her to accept that she might have value to others as anything other than a tool. ]

Are you going to help?

Never said I was smart.

[ Careful, paranoid, wary, and so on. But his life is composed of stupid decisions and wrong turns with the best of intentions and a hope for the best. He used to be optimistic, and that's his greatest regret. ]

I don't know how to help anyone else.

[ And right now, he remembers, he's still figuring out how to help himself. ]

You're young. Still got time to do the right thing for yourself.

Yeah? And what's the "right thing"? If you don't know how to help, why are you bothering?

[ There's hostility in her voice. Resentment. She knows that she's a mess. That doesn't mean she likes having attention drawn to it. Especially by people who don't seem to offer anything themselves. ]

Whatever gives you peace.

[ It isn't morals. It isn't doing right by others. Not necessarily, at least.

As long as she doesn't lie to herself about who she wants to be, even if that turns out to be a monster.

That's the only question he answers. ]

Yeah, well, we'll see if I ever figure that out.

[ She's dismissive. Mostly because she's not sure where she's going to go or end up or how to even find peace for herself after everything she's been through. It won't be like flipping a switch. It's going to be a slog.

She's already not that happy about the idea. ]

Like I said. You're young.

[ She's still got a chance to change whatever's rotting inside her heart, clawing into her brain. Distrust and anger and sadness. Alone for so long that she'd rather avoid it than the risk of ending her isolation and falling right back in.

(It's entirely his own life, what he's thinking about, based on nothing more than the surface impressions.) ]

Who's in your brood?

[ She lets the young comment float past. She doesn't care about that (sort of) and she'd rather just forget about the fact that everyone around her sees her as some kind of kid. She rolls her shoulders with a little shrug and a huff of breath. ]

Lavvy. Adra. I dunno about anyone else.

[ He gets flickering mental images of both elves. They're a bit strange; one is missing an arm, the other has some sort of monkish look - at least from Asuka's perspective. There's also something else to her perspective of them - there's a tentative sort of caring.
An idea she can rely on them, a feeling that terrifies her. ]

[ That's good, he supposes. Finding people to lean on, with the exception that they're strangers - at first, at least. He can't say he trusts the one boy in his brood, but he's not going to exclude him completely. Their symbiotes won't let him, and the thought is an insidious one. Thinking about it will only make it worse. ]

Haven't met any of them. 'They useful?

I guess. Not like it would matter if they weren't, right? I'm stuck with them.

[ When in doubt, be dismissive. ]

Yeah? [ He feels very much the same. And considering everyone is human - in the psychological sense of the word - or close enough, he's guessing many of these hosts have the sense that they've been shoved together, rather than brought. Kids thrown into a classroom with rules and an adult telling them what to do. The first test will be coming up soon, no doubt. ] What about the others.

[ More people she's made bonds with. Maybe one of them will be useful, someone he can talk to and build a more steady foundation within the community. ]

What about them? Why are you even asking?

[ She's always suspicious. Always wary of being hurt or burned by the people around her. It's a terrible way to live, but it's the only way she knows. She folds her arms with a low huff of breath, trying to stare him down. ]

Why don't you tell me about your brood first.

Not much to tell. [ The answer is simple, and true. ] Just me and the other boy. Thought I would get to know more.

(no subject)

redheadcarrier - 2017-07-03 21:00 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only